


let's cause a little trouble

by punkrockbadger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, M/M, Wolfstar is not endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4879540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockbadger/pseuds/punkrockbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Reincarnation AU] Everyone remembers bits and pieces of their past lives, but they all think it’s a dream, because magic can’t exist, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thearcherballet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thearcherballet/gifts), [adhdheather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adhdheather/gifts).



> *bangs pots and pans together* welcome to hell

This is the third time this week James has woken up from dreams of green light.

He doesn't know why he dreams of green light, because the closest thing he's seen to what happens in his dreams are lightsabers, and those aren't real, are they? And the hooded man wielding it is obviously evil, so James has no idea why he's got a green one rather than red. Basic rules of lightsabers.

The dream is always the same-- he is standing by the stairs as the hooded man, with the oddest lightsaber he's ever seen, approaches, the green light shoots toward him, and then he's struck by the feeling that someone's ripped his heart out of his chest. The feeling returns, as he thinks about it, and James smacks his chest lightly, just above his heart, as if warning it to stay in there. His hands are sweaty. He wipes them off on his shirt.

He doesn't know why this dream keeps coming for him, but it always seems to.

That's hardly the part that makes him feel the weirdest, the fact that he always has this dream no matter what he tries-- that honor goes to the fact that he's always yelling for someone named Lily to run, at the beginning. The oddest part of it all is that he's never known someone named Lily, much less the Lily from his dream, but he knows he loves her. He wants to protect her from whatever this green light means, keep her safe and in his arms and warm, and the feeling overwhelms him, sweeping him under like an ocean wave.

It’s a weird feeling, James thinks, to love someone who might not even exist.

But James has got school tomorrow, and Physics first to boot, so he can’t afford to ponder the philosophy of existence for hours on end. He closes his eyes, pushing as many thoughts as he can out of his head, and tries to sleep.

The hooded man doesn't come back, that night, and James is not sure whether it’s because he couldn’t fall back asleep, or because he thought of Lily instead.

* * *

The curtain sucks him in, as he is screaming for anyone at all to save him, and Sirius startles awake, rubbing at his eyes as he tries to strengthen his tenuous grip on the real world. There are no curtains swallowing him, and even if there were, it would be fake, because curtains don’t do that. That’s not how they work.

But Sirius seems to have been missing that piece of information since childhood, no matter how many times he’s been told that the drapes are “just fine, Sirius, it’s almost like you think they’ll eat you” or “curtains, of all things, are your worst fear?” in that condescending tone that Cousin Bella loves. And it’s not like he could go to his parents with this, he thinks with a snort. No, with their ridiculous ideas of power and propriety, an heir who was afraid, or god forbid, sought their comfort, was completely out of the question.

“Fuck you.” Sirius says, glaring at the curtains over his window, and buries his head in his pillow.

Within seconds, he is fast asleep.

* * *

“Must’ve been a monster in my past life, or something.” Remus mutters, shifting in his bed. Thankfully, the pain in his joints is keeping him far too awake to dream about the green light again. Or worse, he thinks, and spends the next twenty minutes frozen solid by fear, watching the window like someone was going to climb through the next second and steal him away. An unreasonable fear for anyone else, but for Remus, just the left over bits of a memory.

Remus squeezes his shoulder tight, running his thumb back and forth across it like the soothing motion will wipe the pain away, and resigns himself to another night spent awake, watching the moon through his window. He’s always felt drawn to it, for some reason, especially during the nights.

“You’re practically a wolf, with how much you love the moon.” One of his cousins had said once, with a laugh. “Except I doubt you could hurt a fly.”

“I doubt I could either.” Remus had said, with the brightest smile he could manage. “A werewolf? Me? I’d be horrid at it.”

He’d never understood why laughing at that had felt so wrong, settling heavy in his chest like a weight meant to drag him down.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Remus asks earnestly, keeping his voice to a low whisper, and the moon, as if responding, shines a little brighter.

* * *

Peter dreams of glory, of success and pride, but those dreams always end in a silver hand locked tightly around his throat as he gasps for air, begging forgiveness from someone named James. He doesn’t know anyone named James that he would be willing to beg forgiveness from that earnestly, but he hopes that, whoever this James is, he is at peace, and that Peter hasn’t done anything to him in real life.

The dream feels too real to be fake, as it always does, and Peter is left wondering about who he has hurt, and why, and how, and the strange feeling that he’s done something wrong roils in the pit of his stomach like a hurricane.

“Would be helpful”, he says aloud, “if I knew what I’d done wrong.”

The walls of his room do not answer, and Peter sighs, settling back down to sleep.

The answers always come to him eventually, and Peter is excellent at waiting.

* * *

It is not just the dream, James realizes eventually, but a whole world that comes with it that he’s dreamt up. A world where he’s the most popular boy in the school, with friends and a girlfriend to boot. A world where people like him, just because he is around, and don’t expect perfection from him, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

A world that doesn’t exist.

When he’s awake, James is the boy everyone loves to hate, the weird brown boy who can’t speak English properly and is too much of a troublemaker to associate with, and he ignores the boys that yell about how he should go back to his country when he rushes home, shoulders drawn halfway up to his ears and head down.

But when he’s asleep, he means something to people. He means something to his friends, means something to a beautiful little boy named Harry, who James finds himself yelling for as well, means something to Lily.

It confuses him, this feeling of being needed and wanted, and he pushes it aside. There are better things to think about, bigger things, and they are meant for James in a way this dream world isn’t.

The dream world is just a bunch of fake promises, and if James wants his life to be anything like that, he’ll have to work for it. There’s no way anyone gets friends just by existing and being themselves, no matter how much James’ mother tells him that’s true.

He taps the end of his pen against his desk, listens to the cap smack against the wood rhythmically as he watches the clock. Class will start, and then these thoughts will stop bothering him.

* * *

Sometimes Sirius wonders if he is the only popular person who despises the attention.

People flock to him because he has money, and he has more friends than he knows what to do with, but he can’t imagine sharing his thoughts with a single one of them. He can’t imagine telling them his secrets, can’t imagine sharing anything more than the most normal of the things that flit through his head. Hell, he can’t even do that with his family, so sharing with his friends would be even more of a mystery.

“You’re being dramatic, Sirius”, his mother would say, glass of wine in hand. He’s been told that he gets it from her, his need to turn every interaction into a performance, but there is a clear line in his head between his funny antics and his mother’s productions, created with purpose to tear down those around her into their constituent pieces so that she can remold them into something he can stand. He’s seen it happen right before his eyes, been an actor in her sick plays, and he would laugh in her face if he weren’t afraid she’d tear him to pieces. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

“It’s fine.” Sirius says, nodding. “You’re right, I probably am.”

Sometimes, Sirius thinks, he would like to disappear.

* * *

Remus sees a lot of people come through the library. He spends most of his time here, volunteering, simply because the library is a second home to him. He feels safe here, among the shelves of books, and there’s nothing like the quiet. Of course, there’ll be a couple people hell bent on breaking that silence, but they’re easily dealt with. Remus likes to think he’s mastered the art of shushing people.

The best part of working in the library, though, is seeing the people who come through. Remus like assigning stories to people who walk by, like he knows them well, and sometimes, particularly interesting characters will make it into the novels he writes, late at night, when his parents have fallen asleep.

The chubby brown haired boy, with his head pillowed on a pile of textbooks, might have fallen asleep waiting for his friends to come around. He looks like the type to be friends with the loud types, the ones Remus has to shush several times before they remember this is a library. And yet, at the same time, he looks like the kind of person Remus could be friends with—quiet, and funny, and the type to keep uncomfortable questions unasked. He drools, though, and Remus worries for the books.

There’s the dark skinned boy with the golden eyes that Remus always sees wandering the foreign language shelves on Thursday evenings. He’s tall, taller than Remus himself, and the sight of his short black hair, sticking up in ten thousand different directions regardless of how short he cuts it, always coaxes a smile out of Remus. Remus wonders if he’s an athlete, because he looks like the type. Perhaps a swimmer. But an athlete would be surrounded by friends, or teammates at least, and this boy looks a little lonely. One thing doesn’t change—he’s always gone by the time Remus works up the nerve to talk to him.

And then, the one that intrigues Remus the most.

A dark haired boy, with steel grey eyes and a smile that cuts like broken glass, surrounded by a crowd of people who all adore him. He looks caged in, like a cornered animal, despite his admirers, and Remus wonders if the boy is actually unhappy or just putting on an act. That seems to be what’s cool these days, from what he sees of movie posters. Being rich and dissatisfied, roaming the areas where the common people go to culture yourself. It’s a carefully constructed sort of sadness, the kind this boy displays, a sadness that’s so carefully calculated in how it’s hidden and shown that Remus wonders how he manages at all.

But they are as distant to Remus as people he passes on the street, and although these boys have found their way into the characters Remus writes, he doesn’t know a single one of their names.

* * *

What people forget, because he is so quick to take the backseat in groups, is that Peter loves conversations.

He is the type of friend that will talk to you for hours about nothing, and stay up all night laughing over stupid jokes. People tend to forget that, because he’s hardly an extrovert by any count, but lately, Peter finds himself talking to the boy at the library and enjoying it. Peter is good at the waiting game-- people come to him when they want to talk, and then he talks. And it’s all the fun in the world, when it’s happening, but people have this uncanny ability to forget Peter as quickly as they remember him.

It’s like magic, Peter says, with a laugh, when people ask. But the laugh never reaches his eyes, which remain stubbornly cold. Peter’s eyes, normally the color of the blue crocs his mother made him wear all summer when he was nine, resemble an ocean when he is angry. And, when he is forgotten, he is angry.

It’s like magic, Peter thinks bitterly, before going back to his books. He has an exam in Chemistry tomorrow, and he’s quite sure his friends are off studying together somewhere, having forgotten to invite him along again.

Invisibility is the worst kind of magic.

* * *

James is walking back from the microwaves to find a table when his lunch gets knocked out of his hands. The tupperware falls onto the floor, splattering sambar sadham all over the floor, and James’ face feels like it’s burning. If he could blush, he would be. He’s wondering who did it when he hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Maybe if you’d brought normal food, you wouldn’t have this problem.” Sirius Black says with a laugh. James doesn’t even need to look at him to see the look of haughty amusement likely plastered across Black’s face, doesn’t even need to hear his voice to feel condescension pressing in on him from all sides. He feels like everything is closing in on him, like the walls are moving in and he can’t escape, and he’ll be crushed soon, the air squeezed from his lungs.

James is going to kill him. Murder him. Hack him to bits with a plastic knife. He doesn’t know. Anything’s preferable to standing here and doing nothing. But Sirius has the whole cafeteria laughing, and James is frozen in place, staring emptily at what would’ve been his lunch until the janitor breaks the spell over him by tossing the container at him. He looks around, noticing that everyone’s sitting at their tables. How long has he been standing here?

James sighs, closing his eyes for a second to reorient himself, gripping the container as hard as he could. He’s alright. It’ll be fine. Words can’t hurt. He knows he’s lying, but it’s nice to use familiar words to do it.

“Watch yourself next time, kid.” He says, mopping up the mess. Argus Filch has always been angry, for as long as anyone could remember. “I’m not here to clean up your messes.”

James hangs his head in shame and nods. “Yeah. I won’t. I’m sorry.”

Sometimes, it feels like sorry is all he’s been saying for years.

* * *

“Maybe if you’d brought normal food, you wouldn’t have this problem.” The words leave his mouth, instinctive, as if they’re lines he’s memorized. Potter’s back is to him, but he sees the way his shoulders draw up, muscles tense. He’s ready to fight, Potter, ready to destroy Sirius, but he wouldn’t dare. He’s got too many morals for that, too many convictions and rules in his head. He looks like the idealistic sort.

Luckily, Sirius is not that sort at all.

Perhaps, in another world, Potter would have grounded him, brought him back down to earth when he flew too close to the sun, but luckily for Sirius (and perhaps not so luckily for Potter, whose first name he doesn’t know despite years of being in school together), this is not that world.

Sirius is safely sitting at his table by the time Filch comes through to take Potter to task for creating a mess, and he can’t help but smile at the shame written clearly on Potter’s face. He should’ve known better than to set himself further apart from the rest of them, after years of seeing what happened to those who tried too hard to be different, but Potter doesn’t look like the learning sort.

No, he’s got too many principles for that, Sirius thinks, as Potter leaves the cafeteria, half open lunchbox tucked under his arm. His head is held high, now, like nobody could take him down. He doesn’t look like someone who’s just come off worse in a fight with Sirius Black.

It’ll be fun, Sirius thinks, to break him.

Maybe he is a little more like his mother than he’d thought.

* * *

The boy walks into the library alone, sharp edges clearly on display, and walks straight up to Remus’ desk, steel colored eyes locked on his the whole way. A bruise blooms across his cheekbone, staining his face purple, and Remus doesn’t say a word. Bruises are nothing new to him, and he feels as if the boy would appreciate it. The broken glass smirk he gets in reply is proof that he made the right choice.

“I’m Sirius Black.” He says, as if the private school sweater and expensive watch on his wrist don’t scream out his identity. “You’ve been watching me.”

“I’m Remus Lupin.” Remus says, after a pause, and decides he can leave the desk alone for a bit. “And I won’t deny that.”

He discovers, later, a million things about Sirius he could’ve only guessed at before, namely, that Sirius is an excellent kisser, and that his phone number ends in 6789 because he was afraid he wouldn’t remember it otherwise, and that the bruise is from a fight, but that Sirius won’t say who gave it to him. Remus’ fingers run over it, soft and careful, and Sirius doesn’t flinch.

In return, for once, Remus is forthcoming. He has a younger sister named Lily, who is in the same year as Sirius at school, and the closest thing that Remus has to a best friend. He volunteers at the library because he likes watching the people. He writes novels that no one has ever read.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Remus says softly, lips pressed up against the shell of Sirius’ ear. “I’m not the type of guy to do this often.”

“No, you’re one of those library types.” Sirius says, rolling his eyes as he tugs at the fraying end of Remus’ sweater vest. Remus blushes. “Loosen up, Lupin. Live a little.”

“Maybe I will.” Remus says, and pulls Sirius in for another kiss.

* * *

“You don’t want to keep doing that.” Peter says, once Sirius has been shooed away by another librarian. “Kissing him, I mean. He’s a nasty sort.”

“He seems alright to me.” The librarian, Remus, says, with a frown and leans forward slightly. Peter hopes it’s because he’s listening.“What do you mean?”

“He’s using you.” Peter says urgently, fiddling with the hem of the too big hoodie he is wearing. “People like him, they don’t care about people like us.”

“Thanks for your concern, I guess.” Remus says, smiling softly, and Peter’s eyes go hard. He knows, then, that Remus will not listen. Remus will not listen until he sees it.

“Do you even know my name?” Peter asks, years of conversations running through his head, and Remus blinks in surprise, frowning thoughtfully as he wracks his brain for answers. After a couple seconds, Peter shakes his head. He should’ve known it better. “I take it back. You’re just like him, but you don’t even know it.”

Peter stalks out of the library, eyes blazing, and resolves to never come back.

* * *

James walks into the library on Thursday evenings, as he always does, and goes straight for the foreign language section. He only ever checks out one book, which must make his library card record look ridiculous. The last librarian used to ask him why he didn’t just buy a copy, if he was going to take a copy out every time he came in, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he had one. He had one, at home, and it was all his, but this, this was like sharing it with other people.

People wondered what a kid like him was doing, taking out the same book on medicine over and over again, but all he needs as encouragement is the name across the top. Hariharan Iyer, it says, in Tamil. He traces his finger over the loops and curves of the familiar lettering, an easy smile coming to his face. His grandfather’s name.

He flips through the pages, as if he hasn’t read it a million times before, and then goes up to the checkout counter, typing in his card number before putting the barcode under the red light. Just the one book, the same book, checked out exactly three weeks from when he last checked the book out. Thankfully, the library has two copies, so he’s never without one.

He slips the book into his backpack, careful not to bend the pages, and, just as he is heading for the door, he bumps straight into Sirius Black. James stiffens, the half a foot he has on Sirius even more apparent than usual, and stutters out an apology before pushing past Sirius and running for the door. His vision is blurred by tears, rendering his glasses useless, but it doesn’t matter, since he knows the way home. He could even get himself home on autopilot if he had to, which is his plan.

The library was supposed to be safe, and here came Sirius, ruining the last thing he had left. James pulls the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands as soon as he’s alone, rubbing hard at his eyes to force the tears back. Sirius Black, always fucking taking everything. James can’t stand him, wants to ruin him, but he can’t. He’d be just as bad as Sirius was, then, and he doubts he could live with himself if he was anything like that lowlife.

Sirius Black is everything his father has warned him against becoming-- complacent and content in his privilege, making no effort to effect change and use the power he wields so casually for anything other than his own gain.

“You’re not a single bit like him, that’s something I can be proud of.” Appa had said, a faint smile playing around his lips, and James had kept his head down, ashamed of the fact that maybe, just maybe, he’d have liked to be a little bit like Sirius. People liked him. Nobody really hung around James unless they had to, and they were gone as soon as they had an alternative. Sirius, by contrast, always had someone. James wants to know what that feels like.

The dream haunts him now, constantly filling his head with lies, and he can’t close his eyes without seeing the green light and hearing the hooded man’s laughter boom in his ears, and James screams, trying to drown out the sound in his head, and slams his fists against the wall. Amma and Appa aren’t home, so he doesn’t have to worry too much.

They’d ask what was wrong, if they were, and Amma would pull the whole story out of him no matter how hard he tried to hide it, and then they’d worry, and James doesn’t want that. They have ten thousand other things to worry over-- no need for them to worry too much over him.

By the time the front door opens and closes downstairs, accompanied by his parents’ happy chatter, James has calmed down, and is sitting on his floor, still shaking slightly. He’s no longer yelling-- he’s yelled out all the things worth yelling, in his head, and his throat feels raw, like someone shoved a hairbrush down his throat. Now, he’s just feeling too numb to do much of anything.

Amma calls up the stairs, asking if James is ready for dinner, and he yells back, once he finds his voice again, that he is, before rushing into the bathroom and washing his face as many times as he can to make it look like he hasn’t been crying. He practices smiling in the mirror while mentally reviewing his day, picking out the parts he can tell them about and spinning stories to make it seem much greater than it had been.

Amma would laugh at him for exaggerating, Appa would shake his head and mutter something about lying getting you in trouble someday, and James would smile along and let things happen. Besides, it’s not as if how his day really went was worth telling about anyhow.

* * *

Remus was fun. He was a good distraction. And a distraction was just what Sirius needed. He liked showing up at the library during the afternoons, liked having something secret to do that was just his, and it didn’t matter if he liked Remus. It was simply a bonus. Now, all he had to do was keep him a secret, and he was set.

If his family found out, it would cause a fuss Sirius wasn’t ready to deal with. And especially now, so soon after the incident with Andromeda, it would cause more than a fuss. Best to not bait them more than he had to.

“Remus?” Sirius asked, one afternoon when Remus wasn’t scheduled for work. They were sitting on the swings in an abandoned park, far away from where any of Sirius’ classmates could find him, and Sirius, always cautious, had stashed his sweater and tie in his backpack to avoid detection. Remus hums, just to prove he’s listening, and pushes himself back and forth, feet securely on the ground. Sirius finds it endearing, this strange restraint that Remus exercises around him, and taps his shoulder. Remus winces, a lot more than he should have at that light a touch, and looks over to Sirius. “Live a little, Lupin. Feet off the ground.”

“Can’t do it right without an example.” Remus says, and Sirius takes it as a challenge. He holds the rusty old chains tightly in his fists, kicking his feet out and then bending them at the knees until he feels like he’s flying. Sirius lives on adrenaline, and the swings have always fascinated him, but the swings with Remus are a new experience. Remus is laughing beside him, head thrown back as he swings back and forth, feet finally losing their tight hold on the ground.

“There you go!” Sirius called out, grinning so wide he feels like his face might split. “Now you’re doing it!”

“Learned from the best!” Remus yells back, and they have to stop swinging because Sirius doubles over, nearly falling off the swing because he’s laughing too hard.

If only Remus knew, if only.

* * *

“Remus?” He wakes suddenly, at the sound of his name, having always been a light sleeper, and his sister smiles tiredly from the doorway as he sits up. “Hey.”

“Get to bed. Sleep helps you grow.” Remus says, accompanying the last statement with a roll of his eyes. Lily hasn’t grown in three years.

“Yeah, well, sleep’s boring.” Lily said, plodding over to the end of Remus’ bed before locating his feet and sitting down hard on them. Remus winces. Thankfully his feet never really get sore, when the rest of his joints die on him, and Lily has taken full advantage of having such an easily attackable spot open. They sit there for a few seconds, in companionable silence, before Lily speaks again. “I’ve been having that dream again.”

“Which one?” Remus asks, although he already knows. It’s the same dream Lily’s been having for years-- she’s holding a baby with her eyes named Harry, telling him his father loves him and that she loves him, and then suddenly there is a loud thump and high, reedy laughter, and she wakes up, sweaty and terrified.

“Which one?” She snorts, shaking her head. “The same one as last time. Harry was clinging to me as usual, then the green light, and I was gone.”

There is never anything that Remus will find funny more than how Harry has just become a part of his sister’s life-- Lily never speaks of him as if he were anything but human, and Remus feels like he has an actual nephew, sometimes, from how detailed her descriptions are. Lily told him, once, a couple weeks ago, recounted every thing she remembered about Harry from the dream, and Remus had had an odd feeling about Harry, had cut in with something he remembered of the golden eyed boy at the library.

“Yeah.” Lily had said, brows furrowed in confusion. “Just like that, actually.”

“Maybe you like him.” Remus had said with a chuckle, nudging Lily’s arm with his elbow. “Goes to your school, I think. Maybe that’s where the dream’s coming from, huh?”

“Yeah, like I’d imagine myself dying in front of our baby, if I liked him.” Lily said, rolling her eyes, and Remus’ heart nearly stopped. It was the first time either of them had acknowledged what the green light was, what it meant. They died, in these dreams. Both of them.

“I don’t like him.” She said urgently, trying to wipe away the memory of what she’d said. “Besides, there are tons of people who look like him in the world. He’s not automatically Harry’s dad because he’s the only Indian guy you’ve ever seen.”

“True.” Remus nodded. “But he’s the only one you’re around on a regular basis, so it’s a solid guess.”

Lily had grabbed a pillow, eyes alight with mischief, and they’d both gotten grounded for starting the loudest pillow fight in Lupin family history.

* * *

“James Potter!” Peter calls out, and the spindly looking boy turns around, a frown on his face. It would look threatening if he were any bulkier, but thanks to the summer camp sweatshirt he had on, and his thin, rangy frame, it looked more like childish confusion than anything else. “James Potter!”

Peter was out of breath by the time he reached James, and James reaches out, steadying Peter easily. Peter nods in gratitude, catching his breath, and then speaks as soon as he’s positive he can. “Recognized you from the library.”

“Pettigrew.” James says, after hardly a second of thought. A strange sense of pride blooms in Peter, at the sound of his name. Someone knows him. “Peter. We’ve got Chemistry together.”

Peter groans, slapping a hand over his eyes. “See, if I’d known that, we could’ve studied together for the last exam. Wouldn’t have failed as badly as I did. Chemistry is pure shit.”

“I’m alright at it.” James says, with a shrug. He scratches the back of his head, looking quite a bit like a six year old had been stretched until he looked like an adult. “Wouldn’t mind the company, if you need a little help.”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I need your help on something else as well.” Peter doesn’t know how well he’ll take it, or if James will come along at all, but any backup is good backup. “Remus. The librarian boy, the one that’s our age? He’s fooling around with Sirius Black.” As if brought on by the mention of Sirius Black’s name, a shadow passes over James’ face, the line of his jaw sharpening as he grits his teeth. “He doesn’t know how bad he is. We need to stop him before he gets hurt.”

“How?” James asks, frown returning in full force. “Black’s bound to find out that we’re plotting against him, and then you and me are worse off than anyone else at this school.”

“I’ve talked to him, but Remus doesn’t know us, so it’s not worth it.” Peter shook his head. “It’s got to come from someone he knows, someone he trusts.”

“How the hell are we supposed to know who Remus Lupin trusts?” James asks, running a hand through his hair, and then the answer, as it often does in Peter’s life, comes to him, after enough waiting.

“What’re you talking about my brother for?” A tiny redhead asks Peter, green eyes blazing in fury. “Remus hasn’t done shit to either of you.”

“Who are you?” James asks, looking equal parts surprised and scared. “And what’s with the yelling?”

She seems to notice James only after he speaks, and, once their eyes meet, they both fall silent. Peter feels distinctly awkward, like this is a private moment he’s intruded upon, because they both relax when they see each other, like you would around friends you’ve known for years, the tension bleeding out of both of their frames like they’ve found something familiar.

“I’m Lily.” She says, after a pause, finally breaking eye contact with James. “Remus’ sister. And what were you saying about Sirius Black?”

“Your brother’s dating him.” James says, looking as if he’d committed a crime.

“Ah.” Lily says. “Shit.”

* * *

Sirius isn’t expecting it, when it happens. He and Remus are at the park, on their bench, Sirius’ head in Remus’ lap as Remus idly plays with his hair. And then, suddenly, Potter, the lumpy boy who always moved tables at lunch, and a ginger are advancing on them. Potter looks madder than Sirius had ever seen him, and looms over his two companions, as well as Remus, although Sirius is sure that, if Remus stood up, he would hardly be much shorter than Potter is.

“What’s your business here, Potter?” Sirius asks, trying to sound casual. “If you’re looking for a partner on the English project, I’ve already got one.”

“I’m not here about you.” Potter says, voice level. “I’m here about both of you, actually.” The ginger nods sharply, looking as if she is ready to tear Sirius to pieces with her bare hands. James stands a little straighter, at her endorsement, looking a little braver. “Remus, he’s not who you think he is. This is all an act.”

“How would you know?” Remus speaks up, sounding just as calm as Potter had. “I’ve spent more time with him than you have.”

“I’ve been in school with him since we were four and he doesn’t even know my name.” Potter says calmly, frown deepening just slightly. He sounds more like a scientist listing materials than someone speaking about another’s faults, Sirius notes. Perhaps Potter has been more of a threat than he seemed all along. “He encourages his friends to go after me in public, in fact, even though I’ve made it clear I’m not a threat to him in any way. He bullies anyone who doesn’t conform perfectly to his standards, and makes fools of those who try.”

“Mary Macdonald, Remus.” The redhead says, stepping forward. The name has just as much of an impact on Remus as everyone else-- Mary Macdonald, one of the scholarship students, had been found crying in one of the hallways a year ago, unable to tell anyone what had happened to her or who had done it, and had left the school shortly after. No one had heard from Mary in months.“That was him and his friends.”

“Sirius.” Remus says, voice colder than Sirius had ever heard it. “Get off me.”

“Remus-- I--” Sirius says, as he sits up, lost for words for once in his life. How dare they tie him to what had happened to Macdonald? He hadn’t even been there. How dare they? “I didn’t do it! You have to believe me. I wasn’t involved at all! She’s lying, they all are.”

“No offense”, Remus begins as he stands up, crossing the distance between them and the others to stand by Potter’s side, “but I’d trust my sister much more easily than someone I’ve hardly known for a few months.”

“Fine.” Sirius spits out, eyes ablaze with fury. “Fine then! Leave me!”

“Sirius, I--” Remus frowns, confused by this sudden shift. Sirius seems desperate, far too desperate, to keep Remus with him. “Sirius, I have to go.”

“Fine.” Sirius says, scowling. “Be my fucking guest. Get out.”

“Come on, Remus.” Potter says softly, carefully placing his hand on Remus’ upper arm. “Don’t listen to him.”

“Is this what it’s about, Potter?” Sirius asks, bitterness dripping off his words, as Remus walks away, flanked by Potter and Company. “Taking away everything I’ve got?”

“No.” Potter says, shaking his head. His shoulders are drawn up again, back stiff, but that changes when the redhead puts a hand on his arm. Potter relaxes at the touch, his shoulders slowly coming back down as the tension bleeds out of his frame, and Sirius would make a solid bet that he is smiling. “It’s about helping someone out. It’s your call on who that is.”

Sirius growls a reply laced with profanities, looking away so he doesn’t have to watch Remus leave, and when he looks up, they’re all gone.

“Fuck you.” He says, to the sky, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “You just hate me, don’t you?”

God, despite being called out, does not respond, and Sirius begins the long walk home.

* * *

“Lily?” Remus calls out, and his sister continues snoring. Lily could sleep through elephants walking on her head, if she put her mind to it, and Remus hobbles over to her bed before shaking her awake. “Lily!”

“Gedoffme.” She mumbles, slapping at Remus’ arms as she tried to get back to sleep. “Was havin’ a nice dream and you’re ruinin’ it.”

“Can we talk?” He asks softly, and she opens one eye, looking him over, before nodding and shifting to one side. “Thanks.”

“Get on in.” She says, patting the empty section of bed beside her. He does, and they spend a couple moments kicking each other in the calves before she gets right to the point. “I’m sorry. About Sirius. But we had to, to keep you safe.”

“I know.” Remus says, running a hand through her hair as Lily lays her head on his chest, just below his shoulder. Lily had hacked it off, in a fit of indecision, when she was fourteen, and had kept it at shoulder length since. “You did the right thing, Lily. He would’ve turned on me eventually.” The words feel wrong, coming out of his mouth, dark and dirty in comparison to the Sirius he remembers, yelling his heart out while playing on a children’s swing set. “Things like that don’t stay hidden for long.”

“Yeah.” She says, reaching up to pat the side of Remus’ face. “Still sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Remus says, shaking his head. He has a strange, fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he is supposed to be remembering something, but the memory is just barely out of reach. Odd. “I feel like it would’ve ended badly anyway, you know? Like it’s run its course before.”

“Yeah.” Lily says, looking a little far away. “Don’t know the exact feeling, but I know what you’re going for.”

* * *

“We just wanted to say sorry.” Peter begins, putting a brown paper bag on Remus’ desk. “‘Cause, I mean, we’ve done a lot.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find a better gift.” James says, looking quite sheepish. “We searched, and I mean, there weren’t many options. Many options that you’d like, I mean.”

“We could’ve found better ones.” Peter speaks up. “If someone hadn’t spent their whole lunch period talking to a certain someone else. Not naming names. Just saying.”

“Thanks, Peter.” James says, sighing. “Thanks.”

“It’s a nice gesture. I love bags.” Remus says, opening the bag up and peering inside. It's full of bouncy balls.

“You also love balls.” Peter says, looking very proud of himself. “See, James? It worked.”

“Oh, good.” James looks relieved. “I was worried.”

“I’ll have a lot of fun playing with them. Thanks boys.” Remus nods seriously. “The best gift I’ve ever received.”

“We’ll leave you to your work, then.” Peter says, grinning. “Have fun, Library Boy.”

“Keep on saving the children.” James says, with a wave, and he and Peter headed for the door, James slightly ahead of Peter the whole way.

“You know I forgive you, right?” James asks, looking thoughtful, once the library door closed behind them.

“What?” Peter asked, frowning.

“Nothing.” James said, shaking his head. “Just felt like it needed to be said, I guess.”


	2. part two

She’s real. He says the words to himself every once in awhile, a pleasant sort of surprise bathing his heart in a warm glow, bright yellow and beautiful (not green, never green). She’s real, and she is here, and they are so very lucky. It’s like the pieces of him are slotting back together again-- she is real, and therefore, he is too.

People suddenly start to notice James with something other than derision in their eyes-- it’s confusion, this time, as they stare while Lily threads her fingers through the gaps in James’. They are trying to figure out why Lily would stoop so low, an unfriendly, hissing voice in James’ head says, and Lily squeezes his hand tighter, as if she had heard it too.

“Where did you meet?” They ask, and there is suddenly a story on the tip of James’ tongue-- a story about being eleven and scared and going away to school for the first time, and seeing a pretty girl on the train and making a fool of himself. He holds his tongue, because that is not the right story, and Lily forges ahead where he stays behind, and her steps forward cancel out the ones he takes back, leaving them in their perfect middle ground.

“How much do you remember?” He asks one afternoon. They are sitting on a street corner, a good way away from the school, and Lily, who is halfway in his lap, is resting her head on James’ chest, eyes shut. Her palm lays flat over his heart, and he is struck by a strange feeling that this has all happened before. He brushes a lock of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear, and the corners of her lips quirk upward into a smile. “Of us. Not us now, I mean, the us from the dream.”

“I remember you dying.” Lily murmurs, eyes opening as she looks into James’. There is a heaviness in her eyes now that he doesn’t remember from before she closed them, and he wonders if the same feeling is reflected in his own. “I remember hearing your body hit the floor and dying once. And then he came, and I died again.”

“And Harry?” James asks, a little too earnestly for it to come across as casual.

“You know about Harry?” Lily comes alive, even more than she had ever before, and her eyes shine with the same kind of fondness that James feels in his heart. Their boy, their lovely little boy. She knows him too. “You’ve seen him?”

James nods softly. He has a million memories that play in his head, of a little boy with the brightest green eyes and softest little hands, using the ten words he knew as much as he could. He remembers little teeth peeking out of rosy pink gums, remembers the shoulders of his shirts being soaked with tears and spit up, and feeling like there was nowhere else he’d rather be in the whole wide world.

“Yeah”, he says, the word feeling woefully inadequate. It hardly explains the swooping feeling in his heart, the rush of fondness for a little boy (his little boy, his Hari) that he might never see again. “I’ve seen him.”

“I miss him, sometimes.” Lily says. The hand that is not on his chest comes up to grip at his arm like a vice, and James wraps an arm around her, holding her tightly against him. She knows it, she feels the empty spots too, feels the fact that Harry is not here as deeply as James does. James is relieved to have some company in it, at last, but, now that he does, he wishes he didn’t. “He’s not here, and I still miss him. How strange is that?”

“I missed you, before I knew you were here.” James says, quietly, halfway hoping that she will not hear him, but he knows Lily’s hearing has always been too good for him to get away with that. He remembers whispering in the halls of Hogwarts and the soft, happy looks she’d shoot his way and ten thousand other things. “And now you’re here. Maybe he’ll come along someday too.”

“Maybe.” Lily says, and James presses a kiss to the top of her head. They sit in silence a couple more minutes, even the pattern of their breaths matching, until Lily speaks again. “Tell me.”

“What?” James asks, confused. He blinks, eyebrows drawing together, and she lets go of the arm of his shirt to run a hand through his hair. It won’t lie flat, even for her, and she chuckles, shaking her head.

“Tell me everything.” Lily says. “Everything you remember.”

“Might take awhile.” James says, a joking lilt working its way into his words. He has memories upon memories piled up in his head, and sometimes, he feels too small to hold them all. He feels like he is full to the brim, but every moment with Lily brings back more little things he’d never known before. Already, he can feel them bleeding into her, through all the places they are touching and all the times their eyes meet, and he wonders if she is truly willing to share this burden. If he wants to put the weight on her shoulders as well. “I remember a lot.”

“Tell me everything.” Lily repeats, running her thumb across the line of James’ cheekbone. He can’t put a finger on what it is her touch does to him, but it’s good. The yellow glow around his heart grows, swallowing him whole, and he thinks this is a feeling he can live with. He smiles, and she does as well. “Everything you remember.”

* * *

One of the first things Lily discovers about James, is that he seems to be making every effort to keep himself a mystery.

He looks lost in his thoughts, more often than not, and, the first time she touches his arm, the darkness in his hazel eyes clears away, like the sun coming out from behind storm clouds. His eyes light up softly, like the nightlight that still glows in the corner of Lily’s room, and she remembers thinking that she caused that. She did that. Lily has had few things to herself, but this is one she will treasure.

And then, after she falls asleep that night, she realizes why.

The dream is different this time.

She is sitting on a ratty old couch, in the living room of a flat she does not recognize, halfway through a crossword that is half in her chicken scratch handwriting and half in neat, careful letters that she doesn’t recognize. Someone has left this for her, and she doesn’t know who yet, but they have left it for her. That much is obvious.

She notices that the date across the top of the paper says March 27th, 1979, as she hears a knock on the door, and Lily stands more urgently than she ever has before. Lily has never liked answering the door, a fear that maybe stemmed from the hooded man breaking down the door in the dream that haunted her, but she feels like this door needs to be answered.

And when it swings open, there is James, glasses slightly crooked and a smile on his face. There are rips in his clothes, and scrapes along his forearms, sparking a deep, desperate sort of worry in Lily’s heart, but he looks relieved to see her, and that sets her at ease.

“Lily.” He whispers like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and she can feel herself smiling. James laughs, looking gloriously free, and steps forward, wrapping her up in his arms as soon as he’s close enough. “Oh, god, I love you.” He says, pressing a sloppy kiss to her temple.

“You’ll have to come in, eventually.” She says, playfully punching him in the shoulder, and he chuckles, running a hand through his hair. She reaches up to put it back into some semblance of order, standing on her tiptoes, and he bends his head down slightly to help her out. She grumbles, something about being able to do it herself, thanks, and he lifts his head back up again. “This is your place too.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” James says, with a wink, and lets go of her just long enough to come inside, shutting and locking the door behind them.

Lily wakes up as James locks the door, feeling warm and happy. A reply to James’ “I love you” is heavy on her lips, and she wonders when her James will get to hear it. She knows she loves him, though she’s not sure how much of that is meant for the James from her dreams, and she knows she will love every moment of finding the differences between them.

“27/3/1979”, she texts James, once she is awake enough to spell. She has had his number for two days, and done nothing with it. This seems like a good way to start. She debates whether she should write anything else, before steeling herself for rejection and going with her gut. Lily has never been anything but brave, and this moment shouldn’t be the exception. “I love you.”

A gray speech bubble pops up in the bottom left corner of the screen, an ellipsis within it. It disappears, then appears again, then disappears before she gets a message.

“I love you too.” 

* * *

Remus still finds himself thinking of Sirius fondly, from time to time. He knows it’s wrong, knows Sirius would’ve thrown him aside before long, and he’s been dreaming more dreams lately that confirm that. Remus is always confused, when he wakes from them, because of how real they feel, how strange they are, and he’s taken to writing them down in the hopes that he can compare notes with someone.

“May 1977 (Peter mentioned Man U winning FA).” He scribbles down, in the blue, spiral bound dollar store notebook he’s kept on his bedside table lately. “Shrieking Shack (?) Whomping Willow = large, angry tree & Sirius traitor. Who is Snape?”

Sirius’ grin from that dream will haunt him forever, Remus thinks, and, after his shift ends on Thursday evening, he approaches the table where James, Lily and Peter are crowded together, heads bent over a scrap of paper.

“James?” Remus asks, and James looks up. One of his hands is under the table, as well as one of his sister’s, and he doesn’t need or want to know what they’re doing. He had to suffer through one lifetime of knowing exactly what was going on-- this time around, he will gladly embrace ignorance. Lily laughs, at the sight of his face, and it’s a reminder to Remus that he’s come here with a question to ask. “Who’s Snape?”

“That’s… That’s complicated.” James says, looking thoughtful. He frowns, the way his eyebrows draw together making him look much older than he is, before nodding. “Pull up a chair and we’ll explain.” He doesn’t even have to look at Lily before she nods, like they are somehow effortlessly in sync, and Remus is both awestruck and confused. He pulls the chair up regardless, and rests his chin on his hands.

“We used to bully Snape. You, Peter, Sirius and I.” James says, frown deepening. “It wasn’t so much bullying as it was a rivalry, really. He went after us as much as we went after him-- just looked worse on our end ‘cause it was four of us against one of him, yeah?”

“Not like he didn’t go further than us anyway.” Remus says, a bitter edge creeping into his voice as the image of James’ face with a deep cut across his cheek flashes before his eyes. “May not have had the number of people we did, but he was far ahead when it came to actually causing harm.”

“Sirius didn’t take so kindly to that.” James says softly, as if he knows exactly what Remus was thinking of. “You were, in the other world… You were a werewolf, Remus.”

The other three watch Remus, like they are expecting him to be surprised, but it is far less dramatic than that. No, it is just the feeling of puzzle pieces locking into place, and a retroactive explanation for a few things. Remus shrugs. He has known this a long time, it’s just never been confirmed. “They don’t like werewolves in that world, do they?”

“No.” Lily says, after a pause. “No, they don’t. And Sirius… Sirius has always been good at playing people.”

“He used me.” Remus says, flatly. “To off Snape. But he didn’t die, I remember.”

“I stopped him. Before anything could happen.” James says, the fingers of his free hand tapping urgently on the surface of the table. He is agitated, or perhaps remembering, Remus thinks. Neither of those things are fun. “He didn’t die, but Sirius nearly landed you in jail. I had to stop you, before he did that here. We all had to.”

“Thank you.” Remus says, because that drives it home. Sirius had nearly made him a murderer, all to eliminate competition. And if people were executed for murdering other people, there would be no telling what would’ve happened to a werewolf. Sirius had known that, and still, he had done this. Remus’ stomach roiled. “I couldn’t have dealt with it. Not again.”

Saying again felt like the final nail in the coffin, an acknowledgement of the fact that Sirius coming into his life had been history repeating rather than an original thing that was all his, and judging by the look on James’ face, he understands.

“We’re comparing notes, if you’ve got anything. Trying to build a timeline.” Peter pushed the paper over to Remus. “Figuring out how stuff went.”

There is a long line down the side, not crooked enough to be diagonal but not orderly enough to be straight, marked with dates and explanations periodically. “September 1971”, says one of the entries, “JSRP+L start Hogwarts”. “July 1980”, says another, “H born, J+L+H go into hiding”. “June 1978”, says a third, “Graduation”. A fourth line, drawn to April 1979, is simply labeled “P”, and Remus wonders why, looking to Peter, who gives up nothing. The last line on the page, though, is the scariest. “October 31st, 1981”, it says, “J+L+H attacked. H survives”.

“That’s, uh, when you two died then.” Remus says, mouth suddenly drying out. He feels like all the blood in his body’s been sucked out and replaced with lead, weighing him down. Lily looks apologetic, more than she should, considering she’d just figured out the date of her death. “Halloween. Lily’s always hated it.”

“And now she’s got a reason.” James quips, and Lily punches him in the shoulder lightly, a warning rather than a threat. They both look more solemn than usual, Remus notes, but anyone would be, in their situation. “Sorry. No death jokes. Forgot.”

“Yeah.” Lily rolls her eyes, and James ducks his head, feigning embarrassment, a smile blooming on his face. “Sure you did.”

“Pen?” Remus asks, honestly embarrassed for James and Lily, who haven’t noticed. This feels familiar, like it’s something they’ve all done for years, and it’s hilarious to think they’ve only really known each other a matter of weeks now. Peter tosses a pen over to Remus, glad for the distraction, and pulls a face as Lily moves her and James’ linked hands onto the table. Remus laughs, even as he feels Lily’s glare cut into him like lasers. Lily would make an excellent laser cat. “I’ve got something.”

“May 1977”, he writes, just before the line marking Graduation, and drops the pen, rubbing his aching knuckles in circles. The pain lessens slightly, so he picks up the pen again. “Snape almost murdered. Sirius at fault.” There is a new kind of pain that blooms in him, at writing that, and he pushes the pen and paper back to Peter, who scribbles down something else before passing it to James and Lily, who whisper to each other for a few minutes before James adds a few more things.

The paper comes back to Remus, and as he looks at these little stories, he remembers more and more, and it goes around and around the table until there’s barely any space left and they’re getting shooed out of the library because it’s closing time. They all wave their goodbyes to each other, standing outside as the lights inside the library shut off, and James and Peter head in the opposite direction from Remus and Lily, the sound of their excited chattering loud enough that Remus and Lily can practically hear them still halfway down the street.

“I feel like you and I were put together for a reason, this time around.” Lily says, kicking a rock a few pavement squares further down the sidewalk. “I mean, I had Petunia as a sibling last time and we know how that ended.”

“Maybe you’re getting rewarded.” Remus says, with a smirk. “Since you got the crappy hand last time around, this time, everything’s turning out better. Me as a brother, nobody’s dead, all that.”

“Maybe.” Lily says, grinning. “We’ve all earned it, I’d say.”

“Agreed.” Remus says, putting his hand out for a high five, and Lily slaps it so hard that Remus’ palm is red and burning for nearly half an hour. 

* * *

Peter envies the others.

Remembering is fun for them, because they are getting good memories, memories of being together and happy and loved. But all Peter has is a realization that he does not deserve the forgiveness James is showing him, not at all.

He sold them out, he realizes, sitting up in the middle of the night, sweat soaked and breathing hard. For his own gain, he sold out James, Lily and their baby. He remembers Halloween 1981 on the timeline, sees “H survives” in James’ handwriting, and his breath catches in his throat.

He did that.

“I’m sorry”, he types out, in a text meant for Lily and James, and presses send. But one sorry doesn’t seem like enough, so he types out twenty and sends that as well. Nothing will change the fact that he killed them (he killed them), but he can try, at least. He can show them he’s sorry, that he won’t do it again.

A reply, labelled James, comes within minutes.

“Forgave you long ago. Get to bed. School tomorrow.” Peter smiles wide, tears blurring his vision, and feels an odd urge to laugh. James would’ve made a good dad to Harry, Peter thinks, since he’s gotten a ton of practice on all of them. Maybe he’ll get that chance this time around. This time, Peter can make sure it happens.

“was sleeping, asshole <3” pops up a second later, under Lily’s name, and Peter’s heart feels a little lighter. He’s known James forgave him since he said it, but Lily was the wild card. Peter knows she doesn’t trust him, has seen the careful way she watches him when the group is together, and he understands. He wouldn’t trust him all the way either, if he were anyone else.

This is a start, though, Peter thinks. A start toward a better future for all of them, this time. All of them together. The only question is how. He puts his phone aside and lies down, wiping his eyes before closing them. The answers will come to him, eventually. Peter is good at waiting. 

* * *

James has been waiting fifteen minutes at the park when Remus finally comes along, plopping down on the other swing. James is dragging his feet in the sand, and he’s practically dug foot sized trenches below himself in the time he’s been alone.

“You said you wanted to talk to me.” Remus says, frowning. “What about?”

“I, uh, I asked you to come out here ‘cause you’re the only one that’ll get it.” James begins, trying to hide how his hands are shaking. James knows how he looks, right now, knows he looks terribly pathetic all hunched over in a child’s swing, head down and feet dragging in the sand. “You loved him too, now and then, you’ll get it.”

“James, what?” Remus asks, getting up and kneeling by James’ side. “James. You okay?”

“Sirius.” James says, even as his head thrums with raucous laughter and “James, catch” and “you’re my best friend, Prongs, my best friend in the whole wide world”. James laughs, but it is distinctly mirthless, sounds more like he is hacking up a lung than enjoying himself. Appropriate, given that these memories, although some of the happiest he has had in either of his lives, are the most painful. “Have you remembered?”

“Some.” Remus says honestly, and James’ head is spinning too hard for him to see straight, so he tucks his head between his knees, letting his eyes fall shut. The memories rush over him like a riptide, sink their claws into him and drag him in deep, and he is screaming for air, but no one hears him. It is all Sirius, Sirius’ smile, the hugs he gave after full moons, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius. His mouth feels like it’s gummed shut, teeth gritted tight, and he can hear Remus calling his name, feel a hand on his back, but it’s as if James is feeling it through a foot thick sweater wrapped all around him.

“Lily”, he hears, through the fog in his head. “I’ll let her know what’s going on. James, it’ll be alright.”

“No.” James grinds out, much to Remus’ surprise, sitting back up before shaking his head like a dog would. Like Padfoot would, he thinks, and feels sick. “Don’t tell Lily.”

“Alright then. As long as you’re okay.” Remus says, his hand rubbing circles into James’ back. He can feel it now, an incredible relief, and his breathing evens out a little more. “I’m guessing the question is how much do you remember.”

“All of it.” James says, trying for a smile, but ending up halfway between a smirk and a grimace. He feels like he’ll throw up, if he says too much, can feel the acid rising in his throat. And still, the thoughts swirl around in his head, like they’re searching for somewhere to escape from.

Sirius outside his door in the middle of the night, bruised and crying. Sirius telling James anyone who didn’t want to be his friend was not worth caring about. Sirius as he was, that piece of James’ heart living outside his body. And then, all of a sudden, James is shocked back to now by the memory of Sirius knocking his lunch out of his hands, laughing the same way they used to at Snape.

James licks his cracked lips, sucking in a deep breath. “I remember all of it.” 

* * *

Sometimes, Lily forgets how old she is.

It’s a funny side effect of having a million memories of being a twenty-one year old mother bleed into your brain, over the space of a week, and her bones feel heavy, like the earth is trying to claim the parts of Lily Evans that got stuck in her head. She doesn’t know how much of herself is Lily Evans and how much of herself is Lily Lupin anymore, but she knows one thing-- she’d rather be both than neither. Even if being both awakens a whole host of problems.

The memories make her feel like she’s learning more about herself, and they seem to flood into her at the prompting of James’ touches. His hand presses lightly against the small of her back, and she remembers him reading board books to a giggling toddler with the amount of enthusiasm any other twenty-one year old would’ve reserved for comic books. His hand wraps around her wrist, and she remembers sitting next to him on the shore of the Black Lake, socks and shoes in a haphazard pile behind them as they wiggle their feet in the water. His fingers thread through the gaps between hers and she remembers being part of this beautiful thing, so much bigger than either of them, and loving every second of it.

He kisses her one morning, lips barely brushing against hers outside the school building, and she remembers it being torn away from her.

She hears the thump of his body against the floor as he pulls away, remembers lifting their son into her arms, their son who looked so much like him, James’ name heavy on her lips as she sobbed. And then she looks up, and the fondness in his eyes makes her heart melt, because this is their second chance. Neither of them should be worrying.

“We’re alright now.” James says, softly, wrapping his arms around her. Lily buries her face in the fabric of his sweater, balling the fabric up in her fists, and he rubs circles into her back, bending forward slightly whisper to comforting words in her ear. “We’re alright now, and we always will be.”

If there is one thing Lily is realizing, it is that it is much easier when James is there. Their thoughts cancel each other out, and the happy memories are soft, like the little waves in the Black Lake, lapping over their toes while they revel in the joy of being alive and together. But James is not always there, nor does she expect him to be, and when he isn’t there, things are harder.

She wakes up feeling heavy, some days, but for the empty space where Harry should be in her arms, and she wonders how you can feel so weighed down, yet so hollow at the same time. It is too much effort to get out of bed, but the memories will make quick work of her if she does, rip her to pieces and swallow her down, so she gets out of bed, at least, and fixes herself breakfast. School is out of the question, but she’ll get the notes from someone later. What she needs now is time to herself, or at least time to figure out who she is today.

Her phone buzzes, James’ name followed by an “are you okay” written on the bright screen, and she types out a quick “need some space right now <3” before putting it screen down on her desk. She needs some time. He’ll get it. He’ll remember.

She remembers being in hiding and feeling too big for her skin, remembers even the sight of walls grating on her, remembers needing to be free and be somewhere large and wild and open, but fearing the vastness of it all at the same time. She remembers wondering how they would all live as part of the world again when the war was over, a baby boy sleeping against her chest, and laughs.

It is hardly a laugh, caught halfway between a choking sob and a snort, but it is a perfect sum of the heavy feeling in Lily’s bones.

Her arms feel empty, she thinks, and wraps them around herself. 

* * *

Remus dreams of being a teacher someday. He has always wanted to teach, always wanted to help people realize their strengths and feed dreams until they become reality. After the first memory of putting together lesson plans in a run down apartment, one of Lily’s old Beatles records playing softly in the background, he wonders if that is all him, or if the other Remus is sending him messages.

He remembers standing on a bridge, a quiet boy with green eyes, dark brown skin and messy black hair next to him.

The boy is the kind of thin that promises height when he’s older, and Remus doesn’t remember why he is familiar until the boy opens his mouth, eyes lighting up the same way Lily’s do when she latches on to a good topic of conversation. It’s Harry. This is the first time Remus has seen him as anything other than a baby, and, if anything, he’s only grown up to look even more like his father.

As much as he does resemble James, though, there is so much of Lily in this boy, in her Harry, Remus thinks, as he watches the soft smile on Harry’s face as he takes in the scenery. He looks so much like James, but there are little bits of Lily scattered through him-- in his thin wrists, in the shape and color of his eyes, in the ears that stick out just a little farther than they should.

“Harry.” He wants to say, wants to draw this child into a hug tighter than any other he’s given. “Harry, your parents love you and they’d be so proud of you if they could see you right now.”

It only strikes him then, that Lily and James never got to see this beautiful boy grow up, and he hopes Harry has been with him, but the sinking feeling in his stomach tells him that is not as true as he wants it to be.

“What were my parents like?” Harry asks shyly, rubbing the back of his head. Remus sees James in the way he carries the weight of the world his shoulders, in the subtle hint of self-deprecation in his smile, and the careful phrasing of his question, as if he is afraid he will be denied an answer.

"Your mother was an uncommonly kind woman." Remus begins, the words coming faster than he can say them, and the way Harry's face lights up is a reward large enough that any trouble for this moment was well worth it.

* * *

The memories that come to Peter are a mess after eighteen, twisting themselves into dark, terrifying feelings accompanied by blurry images. He is consumed by the need to hide, by the need to be small, as if that will keep him safe. He doesn’t know what he wants to hide from, or why, but he knows he has to. It will find him if he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what it is, but it will find him.

He doesn’t know whether it is because he wants to forget, or because the last Peter didn’t want him to remember.

“Wormtail”, he remembers someone saying, the name causing a rise of joy in his chest. But then, all too soon, he realizes the voice is wrong, that the voice calling his name is not the one that should be. Wormtail is not yours, he wants to yell, but he feels like his mouth is taped shut, that any sound he makes will never reach the world. Wormtail is not yours.

But he does nothing, and lets this strange sense of paralysis consume him. It sweeps him under, a wave crashing over his head and sucking the air from his lungs, and Peter wants to scream for his friends, scream for them to help and save him from this. Everything about this feels wrong and scary, and he just wants to go home.

“Wormtail”, the strange voice says again, “I’m so glad you’re here. You’re going to help me so much.”

Peter startles awake, slaps a hand over his mouth, and bolts for the bathroom.


	3. part three

James and Lily turn twenty two at the end of October.

“Uncharted territory.” He says, after swallowing a mouthful of cake. It’s disgusting, but Lily looks glad that he’s eating it, so he takes another bite and smiles. He couldn’t have imagined anything better-- there’ll be a party this weekend, and Remus and Peter will bring their ridiculous collection of bad supernatural thriller movies. James will hold onto Lily for dear life while pretending he isn’t scared, and Lily will enjoy every second of it. He’s looking forward to this bright, shiny future they’ve got now, and there’s no reason to be afraid that it’ll be taken away. “It’s all us, from here.”

“It’s all us.” She agrees, and they sit in a comfortable silence, playing footsie under the dinner table. “We can make whatever we want of this world now.”

“Yeah.” James says, nodding. “Danger’s gone now. We're twenty-two.”

“Yeah.” Lily smiles. “We’re living our new lives now, not our old ones.”

They are doing a little better, as the gap between the James and Lily that died and the James and Lily that didn’t widens. The space where Harry should be no longer consumes them like it used to, back when they were in secondary school and learning the ins and outs of each other all over again. There are days when it is hard, but they face them together. Things have settled into an easy rhythm, now, and James is glad of it.

The ring on Lily’s finger catches the fading sunlight filtering through the window as she reaches across the table to grab his hand.

“Sometimes I feel like we skipped the whole teenagers bit and went straight to old married couple", James says, taking her hand in his.

“Round two.” Lily quips, rolling her eyes. “It’s just how we do things, I’m guessing.”

“Guess so.” James says, laughing. “Look at us, being all adult-ish. Serious relationship talks and everything.”

“We’ll be married soon, and then there’ll be nothing but those talks.” Lily says, with a laugh. Her laugh sounds like bells, James thinks, before remembering the horror that was secondary school English. No way in hell is he writing poetry about Lily (again). “Are you ready for that?”

“Let’s stay here a little longer, I think.” James says, and decides the rest of the cake on his paper plate was made for a better purpose than to be eaten. “Hey, Lily?”

“What?” She asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, and he throws the plate as hard as he can at her. “JAMES!”

* * *

Lily marries James Potter for the second time in the middle of August. Peter officiates horribly, reading every dad joke that he’s ever heard off dollar store index cards, and James and Lily are practically crying before Peter groans and gives up, saying that “you’ll likely be sucking face for hours, so why not start now?”

They hold hands for hours, each worried that letting go might tell them this is a dream, and steal kisses in dark corners during the few minutes of break they get between friends and relatives offering their congratulations. Remus delivers the worst best man speech in the history of the world, which Lily spends quietly whispering corrections into James’ ear, and the evening finally winds down to a close, people finding them to offer their congratulations again before they start leaving.

“Come here a second”, James says, tugging on Lily’s arm, when it’s just them and a few friends left. “Gotta show you something.”

Lily is confused, to say the least, but follows her husband outside. He traces shapes among the stars for a couple seconds, frowning deeply, before his eyes light up. He’s found what he’s looking for, Lily thinks, when he taps her shoulder before pointing to a particular star. Or, rather, Lily realizes, when she squints, the less bright star right next to it.

“That’s Arundhati”, James says. “The one next to her is her husband. It’s a tradition, in our weddings, that the groom and bride go look at those stars as an example. They’re always together, so we should be too.”

“We didn’t need a star to tell us that.” Lily says, as James wraps the hand that was pointing at the star before around her waist, pulling her into his side. “Doubt anyone could tear us apart if they tried.”

“Like they’d even get close enough to try.” James scoffs. “Between your right hook and my generally intimidating personality, they’d be scared off before they could even get close enough to touch us.”

“My favorite thing about you is that you still seem to think you’re intimidating.” Lily says, laughing, and James rolls his eyes before craning his neck to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll handle the fighting for the two of us.” The “this time” that comes along with it is unspoken, but Lily knows James hears it from the way his grip on her tightens just slightly-- not enough for it to be uncomfortable, but just enough that she is well aware that he is there and does not plan on moving.

“We’re a forever kind of thing.” James says softly, and Lily nods. “Don’t need stars to tell us that.”

* * *

Remus shakes off memories of sunlit afternoons, of four boys running wild on the grounds of a secondary school campus, screaming their delight to the world, every morning. He hardly thinks of Sirius, these days, outside the context of the Marauders together, but each memory is still painful.

“How do you stop it?” He asks Lily, who, upon getting married, is finally moving the last bits of her things out of their parents’ house. “The memories?”

“You don’t stop it.” Lily says, smiling softly as she winds up an old, likely broken, Hello Kitty alarm clock in the hopes that it’ll do something. She is disappointed, the machinery having broken and rusted years ago, but shows nothing of it as she, inexplicably, puts it in one of the boxes of things she’s keeping. “You’ve just got to make the memories part of your life.”

“Is it like that, for you?” Remus asks, hesitantly, and Lily shrugs.

“It is.” She says, nodding, as she sorts through other old knick knacks. An old teddy bear with one eye missing and more than a few threads loose makes the box, and a set of trains, obviously Remus’, gets pushed over to him.

Remus nods back. James and Lily have made it look easy to move on, for the rest of them, and neither he nor Peter mention the tearful calls at three in the morning that they still make (“I’m sorry-- I never meant to-- Remus, you have to believe me!” “Peter, you’re not to blame, that wasn’t you.”) when they’re around.

“It’s easier for them”, Peter had said once, “because they have each other, and they’ve had each other for so long that it’s natural for them to share the load”.

“We”, Remus had replied, “kind of have each other.”

“True”, Peter had said, and they’d never really brought it up again.

Sooner than he’d like, Lily is done picking out the things she wants to keep, and Remus follows her to the front door with a heavy heart.

“If anything happens, you’ll always have a place here. You know that, right?” He says, feeling like this is too permanent, and Lily puts down the box to amble over for a hug.

“You’re welcome to come over whenever you’d like. There’s always a place at ours for you too.” She says, squeezing him tighter for a second, before letting go to grab the box again. “I’ll be safe, don’t worry.”

“I believe you.” Remus says, and finds, in that second, that he really does. She will be fine, this time around. There is no war, no evil overlord hunting them down, no obviously present danger. They will all be fine. “Drive safe, yeah?”

“I will.” Lily says, and barely manages to wave without dropping the box before stumbling over to the car, setting it down to open the trunk and then stuffing the box in. “See you Friday, Remus!”

“Friday.” Remus repeats, as his little sister drives away, and shuts the front door.

* * *

After the wedding, the group separates for awhile.

It’s not so much that they are bored of each other than it is that they’re all adults with busy lives, now. Remus has got a job writing for an online magazine that saps most of his attention and energy, James is busy with medical school, Lily is being swamped with work from her teacher training program, and Peter’s veterinary technician program is killing him, although he’s enjoying every second of it.

Peter privately wonders how James and Lily are making a marriage work, between school and responsibilities and the ten thousand other things he’s barely managing, but then he catches a glimpse of them in action over a Skype call, or during a short trip over to check on them, and he understands why. He still misses the group getting together, though, misses how it used to be before university and adulthood and jobs got in the way, and even James’ reassurances that they’d find a solid time that worked for everyone, once jobs were all settled, weren’t enough to settle Peter’s nerves.

They’d find better friends than him, somehow, he was sure of it, and all this going out into the world was only showing them how much he was holding the group back. He was sure of it. No amount of any of them telling him that he was freaking out needlessly could turn him away from the truth.

He tells this to the snakes and the rats and dogs and cats he looks after at the shelter he volunteers at, names them after his friends if their personalities match, and jokes about what Lily the scrappy poodle, James the hamster and Remus the cat have gotten up to since the last meeting whenever the group catches up. Lily takes offense at getting called a poodle, although James winks at Peter when she’s not looking.

“You know”, James says, as Peter is leaving, “you should text more often, Petey. We all miss you.”

They _miss_ me, Peter thinks, hope flaring bright in his heart, and he carries it around within him like his secret. They miss _me_.

* * *

 “We’re having a baby.” James says, in November of the year he, Peter and Lily turn twenty-five. “Lily and I, I mean. Not all of us.”

He and Lily had known a couple weeks, now, but they’d held off on telling everyone until they were all together next. And here they are, Remus and Peter taking turns hugging Lily and fussing over her.

“Hey!” James calls out, and the boys turn around. “I’m still here too. Where’s my hug?”

“Fuck off, Potter.” Remus mutters, flipping James the finger before going back to fussing over Lily, and James grins as Peter walks on over, slapping James’ shoulder.

“Well done.” Peter says, with a grin. “Just don’t get overconfident and try to repopulate the earth, yeah?”

“No way.” James says, shaking his head urgently. Lily laughs, holding tighter to Remus to keep herself upright. “No way in hell.”

* * *

They find out, in October, that the baby’s a girl.

More importantly, she’s healthy and doing well, and that’s what’s important, but Lily can’t help but feel a little odd. It was if she’d always assumed that they’d get Harry here too, right off the bat, but the baby not being him means that he’s alive, so that’s not too bad either. It’s odd, the feeling of missing a child who, technically, you never had. James is solid at her side, reminding her that Harry will make his way back to them someday, and that this baby is a miracle as well, and Lily is quickly back in working order.

She is lucky, she thinks, as the baby kicks the hand she is running over her stomach, to have the amount of understanding she has. She voices this, one day, to James, who shakes his head.

“It’s just basic decency, I guess.” He says, putting an arm around her shoulders. “You miss him. I miss him. We all do. It’s just about giving each other the time and space to do it, I guess.”

“She’s going to know her brother.” Lily says, more a statement than a question, and looks up just in time to see James smile.

“Of course she is.” James says. “The best kind of older brother is the kind who’s not around to bother you, yeah? That way you get the fun parts without the annoying parts.”

“Hopefully she’ll love him even half as much as we do.” Lily says softly, rubbing a hand over her stomach, and James snorts.

“Don’t think she’s got an option, really.” He says, rolling his eyes, and Lily laughs.

* * *

Meghan Potter, who will likely never be called that at all, is born in early March, screaming and yelling her heart out. She very much resembles her father, a fact that all the scans had proved several times over, and cuddles up to her mother the minute she’s cleaned off and given to Lily.

“Meghna.” Lily says carefully, having practiced the name James had picked out for the last few weeks. Remus, who has pulled a chair up to Lily’s bedside, turns the name over in his head before deciding to wait for James to say it so he’ll get it right. James shoots Lily a thumbs up. “It fits her.”

“Yeah.” James says, smiling. “We did a good job. Hari and Meghna. Our kids. Wow.”

“Have you forgotten I’m here?” Remus asks teasingly, and Lily shakes her head. “I’m her uncle and I haven’t even held her yet.”

“So’s Peter, and he hasn’t thrown a fit yet.” James points out. That, Remus thinks, is mostly due to the fact that Peter fell asleep about two hours ago.

“Hold your arms out, and we’ll see if she’s alright with it.” Lily says, and Remus carefully scoots closer, holding his arms the exact way the nurse had shown James to. Lily passes the baby into his arms and oh, there she is. She nuzzles into Remus’ chest, and he laughs, a low rumble in his chest that makes her press her face closer to him.

“We’re lucky she likes noise.” James speaks up, and the baby’s eyes open slowly at the sound of her father’s voice, looking around the room. “Look at that. Knows her dad already.”

“Mostly because you haven’t shut up for the last nine months.” Lily mutters darkly, and James laughs, planting a kiss on her cheek.

Remus rocks her in his arms, smiling softly as she looks up at him. He hasn’t held a baby since Lily, if that could even be counted as holding, and here he is, holding Lily’s baby. His little sister has just had a baby. It’s a lot to process. “Hi there, Meghna. Did I get it right?”

“Sort of.” James says, obviously stifling a laugh, and Remus shrugs. He’ll pick it up eventually. “Good effort.”

“I’m Uncle Remus, and I’ll be calling you Meg a lot.” Remus says, figuring it is better to be honest than lie to a baby, and doesn’t dare hand her back to Lily until she begins crying. “She’s perfect, Lily.”

“Isn’t she?” Lily says, beaming, and Remus is endlessly glad that things have worked out so nicely.

* * *

Peter, thankfully, gets to hold the next baby, who Lily names Madeline, first, but that’s mostly because Meghna won’t let go of Remus for long enough to let him.

‘We’re gonna call her Medha. Like May-dhaa.” James says, before handing his second daughter over to Peter, who coos to her as he takes her from her father. “Means wisdom.”

“Hey there, Medha.” Peter says, planting a kiss on the baby’s forehead. He’s felt connected to this kid since James had somehow convinced Lily to make him godfather, and he wouldn’t dare hurt a hair on her head. “You’ve had a bit of a big day, haven’t you?”

The baby blinks open brown eyes, yawning loudly, and Peter smiles. “Yeah, we’re all feeling about that way too. Join the club.” He looks over to James and Lily, who look exorbitantly happy, and then to Remus, who has finally gotten Meg out of his arms and is eagerly awaiting his turn to hold the newest Potter.

He’s part of the family. He feels it in his bones, this sense of belonging, and he’s glad that it’s finally sunk in, even though it took so long to get there.

The baby yawns widely, cheek pressed up against Peter’s chest, and he smiles. “This is making the list of my top ten days ever.”

* * *

“Medha, watch out!” James yells, as his youngest daughter runs full tilt for the playground. “Might bump into somebody--” And as he says that, like he’s predicted the future, his daughter knocks over a little redheaded girl, who had been running as well. The girl looks to be about Medha’s age, and looks angrier than James expected any kid to be. Kids got knocked over at playgrounds all the time, right?

“Medha”, James says, as he catches up to his daughter. “Say sorry.”

“Appa!” Medha groans. “I'm sorry", she says, sounding very much like she wasn't sorry at all. "Didn’t mean to knock you over.”

“Lily!” Someone yells, and both James’ wife and the little girl turn around. A man about James’ age is jogging over to them, and James would recognize those eyes anywhere. “Sorry about that, really, she’s got no idea where she’s going, half the time.” He says, looking sheepish, and holds out his hand. “Harry Potter. Nice to meet you.”

“James.” James says, shaking it. This is their Harry. Their Harry, an adult, and all grown up. He’s nearly the same height as James is, which James can hardly process, seeing as all of his memories were of a nearly one and a half year old child, but here he is, in his thirties, just like them. “Nice to meet you too. My daughter’s the same way, honestly.”

“We’re in a bit of a hurry to get home at the moment, but hopefully there’ll be more time for an apology some other time.” Harry says, patting his daughter on the shoulder to get her to start walking. “We’ll hopefully see you around soon.”

“Hopefully.” James says, before looking to Lily, who just looks stunned. Harry’s daughter launches into a run, not very different from Medha’s earlier, and Harry chases her down, their laughter loud enough that James and Lily can hear it nearly fifteen meters away. “That’s… that’s him, Lily. He’s okay.”

“That’s him.” Lily repeats, watching Harry’s retreating back until he and his daughter turn the corner and disappear, out of sight. It feels final, like this is the end of something, and they both know they likely won’t see him again. “Our boy.”

“Our boy.” James says, smiling softly, before their attention’s called to their daughters, who are currently trying to stand on the swings. “If that one turned out alright, these ones will too, right?”

“We can only hope.” Lily says, before running to the swings to stop Meghna from jumping off one. James follows, easily snatching Medha off the swing she’s been standing on and tickling her until she screamed for mercy.

They were going to be alright, James thought, and if they simply left themselves no other option than that, there would be no other way forward.


End file.
